Throughout most of Chinese history, the Yellow Emperor and the other ancient sages were considered to be real historical figures.[8] Their historicity started to be questioned in the 1920s by historians like Gu Jiegang, one of the founders of the Doubting Antiquity School in China.[8] In their attempts to prove that the earliest figures of Chinese history were mythological, Gu and his followers argued that these ancient sages were originally gods who were later depicted as humans by the rationalist intellectuals of the Warring States period.[11]Yang Kuan, a member of the same historiographical current, noted that only in the Warring States period had the Yellow Emperor started to be described as the first ruler of China.[12] Yang thus argued that Huangdi was a later transformation of Shangdi, the supreme god of the Shangpantheon.[13]

Also in the 1920s, French scholars Henri Maspero and Marcel Granet published critical studies of China's accounts of high antiquity.[14] In his Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne ["Dances and legends of ancient China"], for example, Granet argued that these tales were "historicized legends" that said more about the time when they were written than about the time they purported to describe.[15]

Most scholars now agree that the Yellow Emperor originated in tales of the gods which later presented the character as a human.[16]K.C. Chang sees Huangdi and other cultural heroes as "ancient religious figures" who were "euhemerized" in the late Warring States and Han periods.[8] Historian of ancient China, Mark Edward Lewis speaks of the Yellow Emperor's "earlier nature as a god", whereas Roel Sterckx, a professor at University of Cambridge, calls Huangdi a "legendary cultural hero".[17]

Names

Clan names

The Yellow Emperor has been referred to as Xuanyan-shi (s轩辕氏, t軒轅氏, pXuānyuán-shì) and Youxiong-shi (c有熊氏, pYǒuxióng-shì).[18] Third-century scholar Huangfu Mi commented that Xuanyuan was the name of a hill where Huangdi had lived and that he later took as a name.[19]Qing-dynasty commentator Liang Yusheng (梁玉繩; 1745–1819) argued instead that the hill was named after the Yellow Emperor rather than the opposite.[19]

According to British Sinologist Herbert Allen Giles (1845–1935); Youxiong was a name taken from Huangdi's hereditary principality; Giles also cited sources saying that Xuanyuan was the name of a village where the Yellow Emperor had lived.[1] William Nienhauser, a modern translator of the Shiji, explains that Huangdi was originally the head of the Youxiong Clan, which lived near what is now Xinzheng in Henan.[20]

"The Yellow Emperor"

In the late Warring States period, the Yellow Emperor was integrated into the cosmological scheme of the Five Phases, in which the colour yellow represents earth, dragons, and the center.[13] The correlation of the colours in association with different dynasties was mentioned in the Lüshi Chunqiu (late 3rd century BC), where the Yellow Emperor's reign was seen to be governed by earth.[21]

Origin and development of the myth

Origins

The origin of Huangdi's legend is unclear, but historians have formulated several hypotheses about it. Yang Kuan, a member of the Doubting Antiquity School (1920s–40s), argued that the Yellow Emperor was derived from Shangdi, the highest god of the Shang dynasty.[22][23][24] Yang's view is based on the series Shangdi 上帝 => Huang Shangdi 皇上帝 => Huangdi 皇帝 => Huangdi 黄帝, in which he claims that huang 黄 ("yellow") either was a graphic variant of huang 皇 ("august") or was used as a taboo character for the latter.[25][26] Yang's view has been criticized by Mitarai Masaru[27] and by Michael Puett.[28]

Historian Mark Edward Lewis agrees that huang 黄 and huang 皇 were often interchangeable, but, disagreeing with Yang, he claims that huang meaning "yellow" appeared first.[22] Based on what he admits is a "novel etymology" likening huang 黄 to the phonetically close wang 尪 (the "burned shaman" in Shang rainmaking rituals), Lewis suggests that "Huang" in the Yellow Emperor's title might originally have meant "rainmaking shaman" or "rainmaking ritual."[29] Citing late Warring States and early Han versions of Huangdi's myth, he further argues that the figure of the Yellow Emperor originated in ancient rain-making rituals in which the Yellow Emperor represented the power of rain and clouds, whereas his mythical rival Chi You (or Yandi) stood for fire and drought.[30]

Also disagreeing with Yang Kuan's hypothesis, Sarah Allan finds it unlikely that such a popular myth as the Yellow Emperor's could have come from a taboo character.[31] She argues instead that pre-Shang "'history'," including the story of the Yellow Emperor, "can all be understood as a later transformation and systematization of Shang myth."[32] In her view, Huangdi was originally an unnamed "lord of the underworld" (or the "Yellow Springs"), the mythological counterpart of the Shang sky deity Shangdi.[31] At the time, Shang rulers claimed that their mythical ancestors, identified with "the [ten] suns, birds, east, life, [and] the Lord on High" (i.e., Shangdi), had defeated an earlier people associated with "the underworld, dragons, west."[33] After the Zhou overthrew the Shang in the eleventh century BC, Zhou leaders reinterpreted Shang myths as meaning that the Shang had vanquished a real political dynasty, which was eventually named the Xia dynasty.[33] By Han times – as seen in Sima Qian's account in the Shiji – the Yellow Emperor, who as lord of the underworld had been symbolically linked to the Xia, had become a historical ruler whose descendants were thought to have founded the Xia.[34]

The Yellow Emperor in pre-imperial times

Accounts of the Yellow Emperor started to appear in Chinese texts in the Warring States period. "The most ancient extant reference" to Huangdi is an inscription on a bronze vessel made in the first half of the fourth century BC by the royal family of the state of Qi.[35] Michael Puett writes that this was one of several references to the Yellow Emperor in the fourth and third centuries BC within accounts of the creation of the state.[36]

Elements of Huangdi's myth

Early years

According to Huangfu Mi (215–282), the Yellow Emperor was born in Shou Qiu ("Longevity Hill"),[19] which is today on the outskirts of the city of Qufu in Shandong. Early on, he lived with his tribe in the northwest near the Ji River (thought to be the Fen River in Shanxi[37]), later migrating to Zhuolu in modern-day Hebei.[38] He then became a farmer and tamed six different special beasts: the bear (熊), the brown bear (s罴, t羆), the pí (貔) and xiū (貅) which later combined to form the mythical Pixiu, the ferocious chū (貙), and the tiger (虎).[38] From this, Ye Shuxian associated the Yellow Emperor with bear legends common across northeast Asia people as well as the Dangun legend.[39]

The Yellow Emperor and the Yan emperor were both leaders of a tribe[38] or a combination of two tribes[37] near the Yellow River, in an era that modern Chinese history books often refer to as "primitive society."[38] The Yan emperor hailed from a different area around the Jiang River (thought to be the modern Wei.[37] Both emperors lived in a time of warfare.[40] The Yan emperor proving unable to control the disorder within his realm, the Yellow Emperor took up arms to establish his domination over various warring factions.[40]

Achievements

The Yellow Emperor as depicted in a tomb from the mid second century AD. The inscription reads: "The Yellow Emperor created and changed a great many things; he invented weapons and the wells and fields system; he devised upper and lower garments, and established palaces and houses."[41]

In traditional Chinese accounts, the Yellow Emperor is credited with improving the livelihood of the nomadic hunters of his tribe. He teaches them how to build shelters, tame wild animals, and grow the five Chinese cereals,[18] although other accounts credit Shennong with the last. He invents carts, boats, and clothing.[18]

At one point in his reign the Yellow Emperor allegedly visited the mythical East sea and met a talking beast called the Bai Ze who taught him the knowledge of all supernatural creatures.[46][47] This beast explained to him there were 11,522 (or 1,522) kinds of supernatural creatures.[46][47]

Chi You, the mythical opponent of the Yellow Emperor at the Battle of Zhuolu, here depicted in a Han-dynasty tomb relief.

Battles

According to traditional accounts, the Yan emperor meets the force of the "Nine Li" (九黎) under their bronze-headed leader, Chi You,[38] and his 81 horned and four-eyed brothers[9] and suffers a decisive defeat. He flees to Zhuolu and begs the Yellow Emperor for help. During the ensuing Battle of Zhuolu the Yellow Emperor employs his tamed animals and Chi You darkens the sky by breathing out a thick fog.[48] This leads the emperor to develop the south-pointing chariot, which he uses to lead his army out of the miasma.[9][48] He next calls upon the drought demon Nuba to dispel Chi You's storm.[9][48] He then destroys the Nine Li and defeats Chi You[49] before falling out with the Yan emperor, defeating him at Banquan[38] and replacing him as the primary ruler.[40]

The Yellow Emperor's father was Shaodian (少典)[2] and his mother was Fu Pao (附寶).[52] The Yellow Emperor had a total of four wives. His first wife Leizu of Xiling bore him two sons.[2] His other three wives were his second wife Fenglei (封嫘), third wife Tongyu (彤魚) and fourth wife Momu (嫫母).[52][53] The emperor had a total of 25 sons,[54] 14 of whom began their own surnames and clans.[2] The oldest was Shaohao or Xuanxiao, who lived in Qingyang by the Yangtze River.[2] Changyi, the youngest, lived by the Ruo River (若水).

When the Yellow Emperor died, he was succeeded by Changyi's son, Zhuanxu.[2]

Later sources claimed that several emperors and four subsequent dynasties descended from the Yellow Emperor:[42][55] Other dynasties, besides these first four, also claimed descent from the Yellow Emperor.

Sima Qian, in his Records of the Grand Historian, (史記 [traditional]/史记 [simplified]), tells us that Emperor Wen of Han's mother was consort Bo, (薄太后, later Empress Dowager Bo, [薄太后], or Empress Dowager Xiaowen, [孝文太后]); and that she was the illegitimate daughter of Gentleman Bo, (薄翁), of Wu County, (吳縣), in modern Suzhou, Jiangsu; and a Lady Wei, a "Princess" of the "Warring-States" Kingdom of Wei, which line was a branch of the Zhou dynasty. All future Han Emperors were descended from Wendi. Several Han Princesses were sent to be consorts of the Chanyu of the Hsiung-nus; so that, at the fall of the Han, the then Chanyu of the Hsiung-nu claimed the Chinese throne due to these marriages.

According to the Wei Shu and Tung Pa, the Cao family of Cao Wei were descended from Huangdi via Emperor Zhuanxu, from which the Cao family originated. They were of the same liniage as to Emperor Shun. Another account says that the Cao family was descended from Emperor Shun. This account was attacked by Chiang Chi who claimed it was people of the Tian 田 surname who were descended from Shun and not the Cao. He also claimed (Gui) Kuei 媯 was Shun's family name.[59][60]

Gun, Yu, Zhuanxu, Zhong, Li, Shujun, and Yuqiang are various emperors, gods, and heroes whose ancestor was Huangdi. The Huantou, Miaomin, and Quanrong peoples were said to be descended from Huangdi.[62]

Claims of descent

During the Tang dynasty, the Yellow Emperor, symbolic as the ancestor of the Han Chinese and founder of Chinese civilization, was also claimed by various other rulers who were not Han Chinese to be their ancestors, in order to connect themselves to the Tang.[63] "Prestige" for the individual and "status" for their country was the goal of those non-Han who made claims of descent from these prominent Han figures.[64]

Claiming descent from Huangdi and the other five emperors was set during the Western Han dynasty in Sima Qian's time. The claim that Shennong and Huangdi were ancestors of the Chinese was written about during Tang and Song. 14 out of 25 sons of Huangdi received twelve different family names. Shennong and Huangdi were regarded as the ancestor for the majority of Chinese surnames. The practice of Chinese claiming Huangdi as an ancestor was well established in Tang and Song China, with many Chinese families writing about their ancestry from Huangdi's sons and great-grandsons, Emperor Shun, and Emperor Yao. Emperor Yao was also claimed to be the ancestor of the Han dynasty Emperor Liu Bang.[65] Most Chinese noble families claimed descent from Huangdi.[66]

Most Chinese genealogies trace their family ultimately to Huangdi. New families were founded by the younger sons of older families. When compared together, different Chinese genealogies frequently confirm these founding events by younger sons. Lynn Pan claims that descent from Huangdi is commonly claimed by some overseas Chinese clans.[67] Many Chinese clans in overseas areas will have genealogies displaying their descent from Huangdi with their different surnames being explained by name changes. Huangdi granted 14 of his 25 sons different family names, These 14 family names are from which all other Chinese family names are traced to.[68][69] Both many overseas Chinese and Chinese in China use genealogies which show the Huangdi as their ancestor to reinforce their being Chinese.[70]

In 1963 during the Qingming festival Huang Zhenduo wrote the genealogy of the Huang clan. He attacked the Taipings, Yuan Shikai, Chiang Kai-shek, the Japanese, and the Communists in the preface of his genealogy, all of whom virtually destroyed China and destroyed ancient historic genealogies of various Chinese families. He lamented the destruction and despaired at how people no longer knew their ancestors.[71] The genealogist Huang Zhenduo claimed Huangdi's six generation descendants as the ancestors of the Huang lineage of the town Huang Cun. Their surname Huang was derived from the Huang region, where they quarreled with each other. Various members of generations of the Huang family had important posts in government under King Wu of Zhou, under whom Huang Liangze served, and the governor of Xin'an (Huizhou) in 322 AD, was Huang Li of Huang Dun town. This town was near Huang Cun. One of the Huang's had no children so he adopted Cheng Keyuan, and Cheng Keyuan became Huang Keyuan and started the new Huang clan lineage from which the present day Huang clan descended.[72]

Inquiring of the Dao at the Cave of Paradise, hanging scroll, color on silk, 210.5 x 83 cm by Dai Jin. This painting is based on the story that the Yellow Emperor went out to the Kongtong Mountains to meet with the famous Daoist sage Guangchengzi.

The Yu (Yee) family of Zhangwan village, Xinhui district, Guangdong claimed descent from Huangdi's son Xuan xiao. Emperor Shun's agriculture minister, Duke Qi, was of one of the originally 15th generations of the family. The family adopted the last name Yu 30 generations after that. The Kings of Chin and Jin honored their ancestor You Yu. You moved to Shandong, he was originally from the northern China plain. Another ancestor named Yu Rui moved near the Lo river in Shaanxi province. He became a censor for the State of Qin.[73] The family moved into Guangdong during the Ten Kingdoms and five dynasties.[74]

Twentieth century

The Yellow Emperor became a powerful national symbol in the last decade of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) and remained dominant in Chinese nationalist discourse throughout the Chinese Republican period (1911–49).[81] The early twentieth century is also when the Yellow Emperor was first referred to as the ancestor of all Chinese.[82]

Late Qing

Starting in 1903, radical publications started using the projected date of his birth as the first year of the Chinese calendar.[83] Intellectuals like Liu Shipei (1884–1919) found this practice necessary in order to "preserve the [Han] race" (baozhong 保種) from both Manchu dominance and foreign encroachment.[83]Anti-Manchu revolutionaries like Chen Tianhua (1875–1905), Zou Rong (1885–1905), and Zhang Binglin (1868–1936) tried to foster the racial consciousness they thought was missing from their compatriots, and thus depicted the Manchus as racially inferior barbarians who were unfit to rule over Han Chinese.[84] Chen's widely circulated pamphlets claimed that the "Han race" formed one big family descended from the Yellow Emperor.[85] The first issue (Nov. 1905) of the Minbao 民報 ("People's Journal"[86]), which was founded in Tokyo by revolutionaries of the Tongmenghui, featured the Yellow Emperor on its cover and called Huangdi "the first great nationalist of the world."[lower-alpha 1] It was one of several nationalist magazines that featured the Yellow Emperor on their cover in the early twentieth century.[88] The fact that Huangdi meant "yellow" emperor also served to buttress the theory that he was the originator of the "yellow race".[89]

Many historians interpret this sudden popularity of the Yellow Emperor as a reaction to the theories of French scholar Albert Terrien de Lacouperie (1845–94), who in a book called The Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization, from 2300 B.C. to 200 A.D. (1892) had claimed that Chinese civilization had been founded about 4200 years earlier by Mesopotamian immigrants.[90] Lacouperie's "Sino-Babylonianism" posited that Huangdi was a Mesopotamian tribal leader who had led a massive migration of his people into China around 2300 BC and founded what later became Chinese civilization.[91] European Sinologists quickly rejected these theories, but in 1900 two Japanese historians, Shirakawa Jirō and Kokubu Tanenori, omitted these criticisms and published a long summary that presented Lacouperie's views as the most advanced Western scholarship on China.[92] Chinese scholars were quickly attracted by "the historicization of Chinese mythology" that the two Japanese authors advocated.[93]

Anti-Manchu intellectuals and activists who searched for China's "national essence" (guocui 國粹) adapted Sino-Babylonianism to their needs.[94] Zhang Binglin explained Huangdi's battle with Chi You as a conflict opposing the newly arrived civilized Mesopotamians to backward local tribes, a battle that transformed China into one of the most civilized places in the world.[95] Zhang's reinterpretation of Sima Qian's account "underscored the need to recover the glory of early China."[96] Liu Shipei also presented these early times as the golden age of Chinese civilization.[97] In addition to tying the Chinese to an ancient center of human civilization in Mesopotamia, Lacouperie's theories suggested that China should be ruled by the descendants of Huangdi. In a controversial essay called History of the Yellow Race (Huangshi 黃史), which was published serially from 1905 to 1908, Huang Jie (黃節; 1873–1935) claimed that the Han race was the true master of China because it was descended from the Yellow Emperor.[98] Reinforced by the values of filial piety and the Chinese patrilineal clan,[99] the racial vision defended by Huang and others turned vengeance against the Manchus into a duty owed to one's ancestors.[100][101]

Republican period

The Yellow Emperor continued to be revered after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which overthrew the Qing dynasty. In 1912, for instance, banknotes carrying Huangdi's effigy were issued by the new Republican government.[102] After 1911, however, the Yellow Emperor as national symbol changed from first progenitor of the Han race to ancestor of China's entire multi-ethnic population.[103] Under the ideology of the Five Races in Unity, Huangdi became the common ancestor of the Han, the Manchus, the Mongols, the Tibetans, and the Hui Muslims, who were said to form the Zhonghua minzu, a broadly understood Chinese nation.[103] Sixteen state ceremonies were held between 1911 and 1949 to Huangdi as the "founding ancestor of the Chinese nation" (中華民族始祖) and even "the founding ancestor of human civilization" (人文始祖).[102]

Modern significance

The cult of the Yellow Emperor was forbidden in the People's Republic of China until the end of the Cultural Revolution.[104] The prohibition was halted during the 1980s when the government reversed itself and resurrected the "Yellow Emperor cult".[105] Starting in the 1980s, the cult was revived and phrases relating to the "Descendants of Yan and Huang" were sometimes used by the Chinese state when referring to people of Chinese descent.[106] In 1984, for example, Deng Xiaoping argued for Chinese reunification saying "Taiwan is rooted in the hearts of the descendants of the Yellow Emperor," whereas in 1986 the PRC acclaimed the Chinese-American astronaut Taylor Wang as the first of the Yellow Emperor's descendants to travel in space.[107] In the first half of the 1980s, the Party had internally debated whether this usage would make ethnic minorities feel excluded. After consulting experts from Beijing University, the Chinese Academy of Social Science, and the Central Nationalities Institute, the Central Propaganda Department recommended on March 27, 1985, that the Party speak of the Zhonghua Minzu – the "Chinese nation" broadly defined – in official statements, but that the phrase "sons and grand-sons of Yandi and the Yellow Emperor" could be used in informal statements by party leaders and in "relations with Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots and overseas Chinese compatriots".[108]

Gay studies researcher Louis Crompton[112][113][114] has cited Ji Yun's report in his popular Notes from the Yuewei Hermitage (1800), that some claimed the Yellow Emperor was the first Chinese to take male bedmates, a claim that Ji Yun dismissed.[115] Ji Yun argued that this was probably a false attribution.[116]

Traditional dates

Martino Martini, a seventeenth-century Jesuit who, based on Chinese historical records, calculated that the Yellow Emperor's reign began in 2697 BC. Martini's dates are still used today.

Although the traditional Chinese calendar did not mark years continuously, some Han-dynasty astronomers tried to determine the years of the life and reign of the Yellow Emperor. In 78 BC, under the reign of Emperor Zhao, an official called Zhang Shouwang (張壽望) calculated that 6,000 years had passed since the time of Huangdi; the court refused his proposal for reform, countering that only 3,629 years had elapsed.[117] In the proleptic Julian calendar, the court's calculations would have placed the Yellow Emperor in the late 38th century BC rather than in the 27th century BC that is conventional nowadays.

During their missions in China in the seventeenth century, the Jesuits tried to determine what year should be considered the epoch of the Chinese calendar. In his Sinicae historiae decas prima (first published in Munich in 1658), Martino Martini (1614–1661) dated the royal ascension of Huangdi to 2697 BC, but started the Chinese calendar with the reign of Fuxi, which he claimed started in 2952 BC.[118]Philippe Couplet's (1623–1693) "Chronological table of Chinese monarchs" (Tabula chronologica monarchiae sinicae; 1686) also gave the same date for the Yellow Emperor.[119] The Jesuits' dates provoked great interest in Europe, where they were used for comparisons with Biblical chronology.[120] Modern Chinese chronology has generally accepted Martini's dates, except that it usually places the reign of Huangdi in 2698 BC (see next paragraph) and omits Huangdi's predecessors Fuxi and Shennong, who are considered "too legendary to include."[121]

Starting in 1903, radical publications started using the projected date of birth of the Yellow Emperor as the first year of the Chinese calendar.[122] Different newspapers and magazines proposed different dates. Jiangsu, for example counted 1905 as year 4396 (making 2491 BC the first year of the Chinese calendar), whereas the Minbao (the organ of the Tongmenghui) reckoned 1905 as 4603 (first year: 2698 BC).[123]Liu Shipei (劉師培; 1884–1919) created the Yellow Emperor Calendar, now widely used, to show the unbroken continuity of the Han race and Han culture from earliest times. There is no evidence that this calendar was used before the 20th century.[124] Liu's calendar started with the birth of the Yellow Emperor, which was reckoned to be 2711 BC.[125] When Sun Yat-sen declared the foundation of the Republic of China on January 2, 1912, he decreed that this was the 12th day of the 11th month of year 4609 (epoch: 2698 BC), but that the state would now be using the solar calendar and count 1912 as the first year of the Republic.[126] Chronological tables published in the 1938 edition of the Cihai (辭海) dictionary followed Sun Yat-sen in using 2698 as the year of Huangdi's accession; this chronology is now "widely reproduced, with little variation."[127]

Helmer Aslaksen, a mathematician who teaches at the National University of Singapore and specializes in the Chinese calendar, explains that those who use 2698 BC as a first year probably do so because they want to have "a year 0 as the starting point", or because "they assume that the Yellow Emperor started his year with the Winter solstice of 2698 BC", hence the difference with the year 2697 BC calculated by the Jesuits.[4]

The emperor serves as the hero in Jorge Luis Borges' story, "The Fauna of the Mirror". British fantasy writer China Miéville used this story as the basis for his novella "The Tain", which describes a post-apocalyptic London. "The Tain" was included in Miéville's short-story collection "Looking For Jake" (2005).

The emperor is an important NPC in the action RPGTitan Quest, The player must reach the emperor to learn the truth about Typhon's imprisonment. He also reveals a bit of information about the war between the gods and the titans, while also revealing that he has been following the players actions since the beginning of the Silk Road

↑Allan 1991, pp. 64, 73, 175: "In the Xia annals of the Shiji, the Xia ancestry is traced from Yu 禹 back to Huang Di, the Yellow Lord"; "the lord of the underworld and Yellow Springs and thus closely associated with the Xia"; "By the Han, their [the Xia] ancestor, the Yellow Emperor, originally the lord of the underworld, had been transformed into an historical figure who, with his descendant Zhuan Xu, ruled before Yao".

↑LeBlanc 1985–1986, p. 53 (quotation); Seidel 1969, p. 21 (who calls it "the most ancient document on Huangdi" ["le plus ancient document sur Houang Ti"]); Jan 1981, p. 118 (who calls the inscription "the earliest existing and datable source of the Yellow Emperor cult" and claims that the vessel dates either from 375 or 356 BC; Chang 2007, p. 122 (who gives the date as 356 BC); Puett 2001, p. 112 (Huangdi's "first appearance in early Chinese literature is a passing reference in a bronze inscription, where he is mentioned as an ancestor of the patron of the vessel").

↑Liu Xiang (77–6 BC), Bielu 别录："It is said that cuju was invented by Huangdi; others claim that it arose during the Warring States period" (蹴鞠者，传言黄帝所作，或曰起戰國之時); cited in Book of the Later Han (5th century), chapter 34, p. 1178 of the standard Zhonghua shuju edition. (Chinese)

↑Mark Edward Lewis (2009). China's cosmopolitan empire: the Tang dynasty, Volume 4 (illustrated ed.). Harvard University Press. p. 202. ISBN0-674-03306-X. Retrieved February 8, 2012. occasional practice among non-Han leaders of tracing descent from the legendary Yellow Emperor himself—the founding ancestor of the Han Chinese people—or from the ancient Zhou ruling house. Such claims flattered both those who made them and their Tang recipients, who could thus assert a larger realm for their putative ancestor. The Chinese had linked themselves to more distant peoples through a common origin in the ancient sage-kings at least since the late Warring States and early Han mythic geography, the Canon of Mountains and Seas (Shan hai jing).48

↑Marc Samuel Abramson (2008). Ethnic identity in Tang China. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 154. ISBN0-8122-4052-9. Retrieved February 8, 2012. Non-Han who had greater cultural and social pretensions imitated Han counterparts in claiming descent from Chinese culture heroes of antiquity, particularly the Yellow Emperor and King Wen of the Zhou, even while acknowledging their non-Han roots.22 Such assertions did not intend to assert or broaden the notion of Han ethnicity. Instead, they aimed to garner prestige for the claimant and to give the claimant's original homeland greater status by including it within the mythical geography of the spread of the descendants of the Yellow Emperor and the Zhou royal house. These claims highlight the extent to which public ethnic identities were predicated on both descent and geography, treated with equal importance in Chinese genealogies.

↑Hon 2010, pp. 147, 149, how the two Japanese writers' "summary of Sino-Babylonianism demonstrated that the mythological figures in prehistoric China were actually real historical leaders who brought advanced cultural artifacts from Mesopotamia"; "In the early 1900s, it was this historicization of mythology, rather than the original text of Lacouperie's Western Origin, that attracted Chinese scholars' attention".

↑Dikötter 1992, pp. 71, 117, "Traditional ideas reinforced the construct of race. Confucian values of filial piety and ancestor worship paved the way for the cult of the Yellow Emperor. Racial loyalty was perceived as an extension of lineage loyalty."

↑Hon 2010, p. 150 "Seen in this light, Sino-Babylonianism became a call to arms for all descendants of Huang Di to wage a racial war against the Manchus".

↑Lach & van Kley 1994, p. 1683: "In 1686 Philippe Couplet produced a complete chronology from the beginning of the reign of Huang Ti, the third sage emperor (2697 B.C.), to the K'ang-hsi reign, or A.D. 1683."